Two days ago, I left three questions here for a self-check: Is the balance on the list? Is the ratio a snapshot or real-time? Does it cover customer balances or all liabilities? Tonight, the answers are in: the paper’s been turned in, but only for ten assets.

First, let’s get the timeline straight. In its November 2 update, Binance announced that the complete zero-knowledge proof for the October 31, 00:00 UTC snapshot had been generated: a Merkle tree records customer balances, while a zk-SNARK proves that total assets cover them at least 1:1, without disclosing individual balances. The ten assets are BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, USDC, XRP, USD1, RLUSD, and ZEC. Among the disclosed ratios, BTC is at 100.04%, BNB at 101.30%, USDC at 106.08%, ETH and USDT at 100% each, and XRP at 100.99%.

Check it against three questions. First, is the balance there? Users holding those ten coins can now use an open-source verifier to check their inclusion proofs themselves. That’s real progress—from “trusting the ratio” to “verifying that particular balance yourself.” But users with coins outside those ten still can’t verify tonight. Second, is it a snapshot? It’s a snapshot from October 31, taken before the withdrawal rush. It proves what was true at that moment, not the live status today. Third, what does it cover? Only the balances of customers holding those ten coins. It’s not an audit of all liabilities; the PCAOB has long warned that proof of reserves is not the same as an audit.

Now let’s look at the 95% and 98% figures: both are true; they just have different timestamps. On November 3, co-CEO Richard Teng first said “about 95%” at Hong Kong FinTech Week, then updated that to “about 98%” on X later that evening. The remaining roughly 2% consists of smaller, less liquid coins that are still being acquired. The shortfall was covered using company funds, SAFU, and the Futures Insurance Fund—not recovered stolen funds.

We also need to distinguish between frozen and recovered funds: about $2.85 billion was frozen or intercepted. That figure is subject to reconciliation and changes with market prices. It refers to stolen funds that were stopped, not funds that have already been returned to users. Treating the frozen amount as the recovered amount is the most common misreading in this round.

There’s another new development today: a preliminary incident report on November 3 said this wasn’t an isolated phishing attack, but a campaign lasting several months—involving tampered Homebrew installers in June, fake recruiting in September, and the exploitation of internal AI tools—before about $6.34 billion was stolen in roughly four hours on October 29. The FBI attributed it to TraderTraitor, which is linked to North Korea; North Korea denies the allegation. The investigation is ongoing and awaits independent review. There’s a preliminary account of “how it happened,” but it hasn’t all been fully investigated yet.

Withdrawals are also progressing: the first 15 networks and assets were enabled on November 1; at 04:00 UTC on November 3, support expanded to more than 100 combinations across 9 networks. According to Binance’s flow chart, deposits began exceeding withdrawals at 03:00 UTC that day. A third-party estimate put net outflows over 24 hours at about $3.29 billion, down from a peak of about $7 billion. The run is easing, but it hasn’t fallen to zero.

One thing you still can’t verify tonight: Binance plans to take a broader snapshot covering more coins today, November 4. The complete proof will take another 40 to 50 hours or so, meaning it should be available to verify around November 6. “The snapshot has been taken” does not mean “the proof has been verified.”

The assessment hasn’t changed, but we’ve moved one notch forward: proof, replenishment, and withdrawals have each made progress, and each still has gaps. Don’t focus on just one percentage. Look at three things: can you verify your own balance, what date does the verification cover, and which coins are excluded?

The real question: if your coins aren’t among these ten, will you withdraw them before the next snapshot, or wait? Why?

No shilling, just doing the math.

$BTC $BNB

#币安 #ProofOfReserves